


In Between

by MonikaFileFan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Car Accident, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/pseuds/MonikaFileFan
Summary: A car accident sends half of the FBI’s most unwanted into a coma. The other half of the whole stands vigil at their partner’s bedside as one singular moment changes both of their lives forever.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 29
Kudos: 159
Collections: X-Files Angst Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	In Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Underworld_Vampires](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Underworld_Vampires/gifts).



> Prompt: One of them (Mulder or Scully, whichever you choose) got into a serious car accident and is comatose. The other one stands vigil at their bedside, never leaving until the doctors make them and then returns not more than a few hours later to join again. Up to you whether or not they wake up or not. Asking for Maggie Scully to be involved no matter who was hurt. 
> 
> Thanks so much to my betas for catching all my mistakes and generally holding my hand as I wrote!
> 
> Jen, I really hope this is what you were hoping for. Enjoy!

FEBRUARY 5, 1999

GEORGETOWN

WEST 53RD STREET

Mulder walks cheerily out of the restaurant and down the sidewalk with a pep in his step, despite the hellish rush hour traffic and the icy air nipping at his nose. His hands are full of offerings and the very real prospect of seeing his healing partner tonight floats teasingly in the breeze. Life could be a hell of a lot worse. 

The strain he and Scully’s relationship has suffered within the last eight months is not something he is oblivious to. He knows his history with Diana and the wavering trust that lingers there has caused a fissure in their otherwise impenetrable foundation. Even with his partner’s clear suspicion and increased personal withdrawal, it’s taken` him too long to notice that the strain comes from his own confusion and conflict of interest. 

Nevertheless, their bond remains intact. And recently, after holding vigil at Scully’s hospital bedside, sleep deprived and guilt stricken that he wasn’t there to take the bullet for her, he holds onto her loyal faith in him like a frail lifeline.

Mulder is exponentially grateful to whatever god may be listening to his continuous pleas for her safety. She is still with him; held close to his chest like a bullet proof vest day in and day out. Still his partner, whether or not they are officially working as one on the files or not. Still his best friend. Still the one he loves more than solving any mystery the world may hold; more than his own life. 

He _is_ trying. Trying to compartmentalize his past with his present and hopes for Scully to be his future. 

Mulder exhales hot air into the wind as he debates on whether to toss the impromptu _get well/I miss you because I love you and can’t admit it without drugs_ flowers in the trash. Right now he can’t blame her for scoffing at his concussed confession. Her staunch skepticism and ability to make him work at proving himself is what captivated him in the first place. He plans to keep doing just that forever if that’s what she needs. 

Trudging through the slush, he climbs in the car and cranks the heat. With stiff fingers, he presses speed dial one and hopes his desperation isn’t glaringly obvious. He’s been itching to hear her voice all day while chained to his bullpen desk without her next to him. This morning, he woke her before the sun while laying in bed just to listen to her playful admonishments in order to make it through another day alone. Then while at his desk, bored stiff with background checks, he’d held the phone to his ear four more times in an attempt to hear her voice before promptly hanging up. 

He’s a little lost without her.

“Scully.”

“Hey, Scully, how’s my stir-crazy partner doing?”

She hums, instantly rebuking his assumption, then hears Margaret Scully fondly murmur his name in that motherly tone he has little experience with in life. Scully spending time with her mother tends to leave her emotionally uplifted yet physically exhausted. She’d mentioned it once and he’s remembered. 

“How do you know I’m stir-crazy?”

“You’ve been housebound for weeks and haven’t had the pleasure of poking holes through my ridiculous theories in person for approximately 72 hours now.” He smirks, knowing her eyes are currently rolling beneath those lush lashes. 

She huffs through the earpiece. “I doubt I’ve ever called your theories ridiculous, Mulder, but, I _am_ shocked you’ve only called me once today. Though, it was while I was still sleeping, mind you.”

“It _was_ after six.” Cringing at how despairing he sounds, Mulder changes the subject. “Admit it, you miss scoffing at my ‘bad bullpen habits and incessant seed shucking.’”

“Never.” He can hear her smile miles away. “I’ve endured over six years of your ‘bad habits,’ Mulder, I’ve had my fair share. Have you forgotten I come back to work on Monday?”

He’s smiling now, too. “Never.”

A blue truck with its bass rumbling Mulder’s steering wheel zooms past where he’s currently parked along the curb of Filomena’s, laying on the horn at the car creeping through the sleet in front of it. 

“Where are you?” 

He slowly pulls away from the curb and onto the road that will take him to Scully’s. The light ahead turns red and the same loud, blue truck two cars up whips around suddenly to take a sharp right down a side street, causing a chain reaction of horn slapping to occur. 

“Uh, I’m only a few miles away. Dinner at your place in twenty? I’ll get your favorite. And if you need the assistance of Nurse Mulder...” he teases, shamelessly bribing to invade her space if he has to, knowing full well she won’t allow him to fuss over her the way he wants any longer. 

Making sure her apartment has been well-stocked on butterless popcorn, bee pollen yogurt, and Blockbuster’s Top Ten has been enough in her mind; yet lacking in his own, considering… well, considering his entire world almost came to an abrupt end in the city that never sleeps. 

“Nurse Mulder, as appreciated as he was, is no longer needed and you know it.” She sighs. It’s the soft, resigned sigh she gives when she has finally accepted one of his less rational ideas as fact. It’s his favorite kind. “Besides, my mother helped me shop before I head back to work.” 

He glances at the steaming takeout boxes and the spur-of-the-moment bouquet of yellow and pink tulips waiting in the passenger seat. “Unless you’d rather me and my bad habits not invade your space tonight...”

“Mom was just leaving. She has dinner plans for the night, so the food sounds wonderful,” she adds before he can finish. “Thank you.”

“Just the food?”

“Mulder…” She sighs wearily now and he can picture her pinching the aquiline bridge of her nose. 

The light glows green through his chuckling and his toes wiggle against the gas pedal in anticipation. “Okay, okay, I’ll see you soon.”

“Hey, Mulder?”

“Yeah?”

A long pause has him clutching the phone harder before a soft stream of breath drifts into his ear. "I tend to like my spaces better when you're in them."

Grinning like a fool, Mulder floats through the intersection on a cloud he feels like he doesn’t deserve. “You’re just saying that because I’m bringing Italian, Scu—” 

He blinks and a deafening horn bellows from a familiar blue blur that slams clamorously into the passenger side door with a force of a freight train, jerking his body to the left and smashing his head into the window. The air is sucked from his lungs as the phone flies from his grasp. There is no pain; just a sudden sensation of weightlessness enveloping his body, sending him on the most dangerous roller coaster ride of his life. 

Absurdly, the only thing that lingers in his mind as moments drip by like honey from a spoon is that those who say their lives flash before them as death comes calling must be lying. 

The only thing he sees through the corkscrew haze of twisting metal and explosive sprays of glass is a sunburst of red hair and piercing blue eyes. They tether him to earth as his face bounces off the dashboard, fading light to black.

***

“MULDER!”

Mulder rouses stiffly with the acrid smell of burnt chemicals and gasoline singing his nostrils. Red and blue flashing lights cut through the burst airbags' fog as he sees his knees scrunched against the dash, his blurry hands decorated in weeping cuts, and a woman in blue staring at him through shards of windshield. 

A voice trickles through the ringing in his ears. _Her_ voice. 

“Mulder, dammit! Mulder, can you hear me?”

“Scu…” The tinny taste of copper coating his teeth makes his stomach clench as he tries to speak. “Scully?”

“Oh, God, Mulder!” He’s confused, his mind fuzz as he registers the sound of Scully in the back seat. So he shakes his head to clear the static, and his entire skull sends searing pain down his face and neck. “Mom, grab the keys, we’re leaving,” he hears through the buzzing. “Talk to me, Mulder!”

“Fuck. Scu-Scully…” The side of his head feels hot and something warm trickles down his forehead and into his eye. His vision is blurry and the world is spinning. 

“It’s me, Mulder, I’m here! Are you all right? I can hear you, just please… Mulder?”

A loud crack and an unfamiliar voice tells him to hold still. He groans, smearing wetness across his cheek. The steel frame jolts and shutters when a set of hands come into his eyeline. What’s left of his mangled Taurus whines around him as a woman slips into the car and gently braces his head between her cold hands. His brain aches with the sensation. 

“Sir, I’m a paramedic…”

“Mulder! Hello, is he okay?”

“...keep your eyes open for me. That’s it. You were in an accident…”

Mulder knows he should respond. Should say something, but his mind is stuck in a groove of one word and one word only.

“...can you tell me your name?”

“Scu-Scully,” he rasps. “Need Scully.”

“Good, keep talking for me.” Mulder feels the paramedic press her fingers to his pulse point and say something to her partner about grabbing a neck brace. She smells like plastic and the latex is tacky against his skin. “Okay, Scully, we’ll get you out of here and get a good look at you.” 

“No, no. I need her,” he strains as hot tendrils of pain prickle through his head. “ _She_ is Scully and I need her…” 

Then a strangled, _“Mulder!”_ is the last thing he hears before his body is lifted in the air. He catches a glimpse of a lone, yellow tulip laying crushed in the driver’s seat, and can’t help but notice how pretty the droplets of blood that leave a crimson trail through the snow-covered street look as the stretcher whisks him away.

Scully will find him. She’ll find him like he finds her, Mulder thinks, before a dark wave washes over and pulls him into the abyss. 

——

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL 

EMERGENCY ROOM

Scully rushes through the double doors with her mother on her heels, breathless, as the cacophonous sounds of crunching metal and her own unanswered cries roll around her brain like an echo. 

_I need her. She is Scully and I need her._

Her hand slaps over her lips to keep her rising worry from coating the triage floor. 

She has been so nauseous since hearing Mulder’s weak voice moaning her name that she’d needed both windows rolled down on the frantic trip here, nearly freezing her mother solid with the arctic-like wind. Margaret Scully had not complained once, only firmly insisted on sitting in the passenger seat beside her, offering silent support, all the while failing to conceal her haunted expression of shared concern. 

A fresh surge of acid whirls in her gut as she searches for an employee to interrogate. She knows the sour ache has nothing to do with a healing bullet wound. It’s the unwelcome, ferocious feeling that’s overcome her before. One that weighs heavy on her chest and sends hairs stippling across her flesh. 

_Goddammit, Mulder._

“Fox Mulder,” Scully hastily states to the intake nurse. “I’m looking for my partner, Fox Mulder, he was brought here not twenty minutes ago.” 

“Okay…” The woman yawns and taps her acrylic nails at the keys. “I’m not seeing anyone by that name in the syst—”

“Car accident down the road!” Scully blurts. The nurse freezes and gives a sympathetic look that fills her with dread. “Please, I just need the room number or I can look for myself.” 

Another nurse pokes his head around the corner. “Is there a problem?” 

“My partner, Fox Mulder, was just in an accident and I was told he was brought here by ambulance. I’m his doctor and I need to see him,” Scully pleads, softening her tone at her mother’s touch. 

“I’m sorry, but are you sure he was brought here and not Trinity? There is no one in the system with the name Mulder. There were two patients brought in from an accident and I don’t have—”

“Wait!” Scully flashes her badge, impatient and lightheaded as realization hits. “Scully. Look up Scully. He was saying my name when the paramedics took him.” 

She holds her breath and her mother’s grip tightens as they wait for confirmation that Mulder is indeed here and not cooling in the morgue. 

“Bingo!” he says, and Scully can breathe again. The nurse waves for them to follow as he walks around the corner. “Room ten. Looks like they brought the MRI to him.”

That’s not the best news, she knows. Head, neck, facial injury indicated. Internal bleeding or internal decapitation… Scully’s heart drops to her toes as her wet tennis shoes squeak along the smooth floors. The sound of her mother’s questions are muffled by the jackhammering of her heart. 

The corridor seems endless so she jogs ahead, passing rooms two, three, four.

She has, over her years with Mulder, learned to hate the smell of hospitals that assaults her senses. Even through the adrenaline and roiling in her gut, she can’t shake the sickening antiseptic hospital air that reeks of bandages, bleach, and hastily wiped bodily fluids. Yet she knows she could thrive here, if she so chose. Unfortunately, she also knows she won’t choose to be anywhere that Mulder is not. 

Shouts to wait are ignored as rooms seven, eight, and nine are behind her in a flash. 

She rounds the corner, sidestepping the nurses bustling in and out of the room marked ER TEN in red. 

Scully stumbles to the doorway with a gasp. 

A mass of doctors and nurses hover over Mulder’s lax body. MRI scans illuminate the walls with detailed images of his beautiful mind. Hands poke and prod in slow motion, checking for a reaction that never comes. A doctor shines a light into each eye and shakes his head. Orders to intubate are tossed out across his exposed chest as a monitor sounds an alarm. Syrupy blood paints the side of his handsome face and leaves tear-like stains down the bronze column of his throat. Scully watches, horrified and frozen, as the metal scope sliding down her partner’s trachea glints like diamonds in the fluorescent lighting. 

“Mulder,” Scully mumbles as the blood slams against her eardrums. A nurse enters her orbit, mouth moving but she hears nothing. Warm fingers grasp at her chin and gently turn her face, rubbing her jaw, coaxing her back to earth. Her mother’s hazel eyes lock onto hers, anchoring her, and that’s all it takes for the world to snap back into place. 

Scully nods, squares her shoulders, and enters her arena to fight for Mulder’s life. 

“Who are you?” A doctor asks, tearing off rust-smeared gloves and blocking her way. 

Scully blinks and slips around her. “I’m a doctor.”

“Excuse me, but this man has one already and is about to be shipped up to the OR.” The woman with short black hair and almond eyes stares her down. 

“Surgery?”

“Yes, he needs it,” she says, narrowed eyes softening. “I’m Dr. Anderson, are you family?”

“Yes, no, I’m his doctor and...” Scully looks down at Mulder as they prepare to roll him off to surgery, refusing to take her eyes off the rise and fall of his bare chest. “His partner.”

“You’re Dr. Dana Scully, then. We found his FBI badge in his jacket from the ambulance and his records are on file. I know you want more information, and trust me, you will have it as soon as we do.” 

Before Scully can pump her for details on why the hell surgery is needed, Dr. Anderson waves her into the hallway and runs straight into the outstretched hand of her mother. 

“I’m Margaret Scully, please, is Fox going to be okay? The accident… we heard it through the phone.”

“Mom,” Scully swallows the lump in her throat, trying to stay professional. “What’s your diagnosis and why is surgery needed?”

The doctor turns and places a hand on her mother’s shoulder to explain.

“Upon arrival, he was responsive but had difficulty breathing. As we assessed his injuries, he slipped into a deep state of unconsciousness. Though, he’s been acutely responsive to outside stimulus, which as you know is positive.” 

She’s being spoken to like a fellow medical professional and appreciates the gesture, but her hopes plummet at the implication of Mulder’s diagnosis. 

“A coma,” Scully confirms.

“Oh, Lord, not again.” Her mother shakes her head and turns away from the doctor to collect herself. Four years ago she was in Mulder’s place: comatose with her loved ones crossing fingers and cursing God. Scully will do whatever it takes to ensure that her partner shares the same hopeful outcome. 

Dr. Anderson nods. “Brain inflammation sustained from head trauma is the cause. Relieving that pressure should—”

A wide-eyed nurse rushes out with Mulder strapped to the gurney behind her and states, “OR is ready and his pressure’s dropping.”

“No!” Scully lunges forward without thought and palms his sternum, shrugging off the hands that grip her arm. Professionalism be damned. She is lost in the moment and only the bruised man with a tube down his throat matters. 

“Let’s move, people.” The doctor's springs into action, checking vitals as Mulder begins to move toward the elevators. 

"No, no, please," Scully whimpers softly, feeling her control start to slip as his rib cage struggles to expand. "Mulder…”

“He’s in good hands, Ma’am,” the male doctor chimes in. But they aren’t her hands, she thinks. 

On instinct, she leans down and presses her lips against the swell of his undamaged cheek. It isn’t only out of panic or protectiveness. As her mouth quivers along his skin, Scully realizes it’s so much more. 

It’s need and desperation. 

It’s love. 

She has no fucking clue what she’d do with a tomorrow without him.

“You're not giving up on me. This isn’t your fault," she whispers fiercely, her lips against his forehead, angry that this was her just weeks ago. Angry that something as “normal” as a car accident has threatened to steal him from her. Angry at the unfairness of it all. “Don’t give up.” 

Lithe arms wrap around her. And for the first time since he’s entered the hall, she is conscious of their surroundings. “Dana…” her mother says.

Nodding, she steps away with an apology perched upon her lips, though she isn’t sorry at all. 

Scully watches helplessly as they wheel Mulder through the elevator doors, feeling as if a chunk of her heart has left with him. Nothing but the faint beeping of medical equipment and her own heavy breathing now fills the silence left behind. 

Her eyes burn as emotions blaze beneath the cool exterior she has donned since Antarctica. 

“We should pray,” her mother says into her shoulder. 

Scully shimmies away from her touch, wandering back into the room that still smells of Mulder. Even through the astringent scent of Betadine and blood, _he_ is there. “Not now, Mom, I can’t.”

The strongest woman she knows swipes at her eyes and sighs, “When then?”

“I don’t know, Mom, I just…” she trails off, picking up the discarded leather jacket Mulder had been wearing recently, cradling it against her heart as she inhales the essence of him. Her chin quivers against the black, buttery hide. “He needs me to have his back. There are things I can do and check the progress of and make sure—“ 

“You shouldn’t be in here,” the voice of one of the emergency nurses who worked on Mulder interrupts her rambling. “Housekeeping will be here soon.”

“His MRI… I want to see it.”

The woman hesitates but then shakes her head and plucks the images from the light box on the wall. “They’ll take new ones post-op and a copy goes into the system for comparison anyway.” She smiles sympathetically, slipping them in an envelope. 

“Thank you.” Scully looks at her name tag, “Dawn. The man, the other one who hit him…?”

Dawn sighs, “I’m not supposed to release that information, Doctor, he’s not your patient.” Upon seeing her badge, she relents. “DOA.”

“Oh.” Scully swallows. The guilt for feeling relief that Mulder hadn’t shared the same fate will stick with her. 

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else left to do, Agent Scully. Nothing you can do for him or anyone else now but wait,” she adds, leaving as swiftly as she came. 

“She’s right, honey. But I _can_ do something.” With a pat on her hand still clutching Mulder’s jacket, Margaret Scully leaves to enter her arena to fight a battle of her own for Mulder’s life. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

The swell of sobs are overwhelming and she’s tired of holding back the wave. Just so fucking tired of holding it _all_ back. Alone now, Scully melts into a plastic chair as her mother’s footfalls fade and allows the flood of tears to come. _  
_

***

An hour after pacing the halls with the phone plastered to her ear, letting thoughts of her life with Mulder steep in her mind, Scully finds herself walking through the gold chapel doors. Their symbolism of the golden gates of Heaven both comfort and disturb her. 

“Mom?” Scully sees her nodding to the pastor as he walks away from the burning candles at the altar. 

She slides in next to her on the pew and closes her eyes. Neither Scully woman needs words for comfort in the house of God, but a warm hand finds hers white-knuckling Mulder’s jacket that now hugs her body, and she loves her mother for it. 

“Let it out, honey. Please. If not to me, then to someone.” And in a heartbeat, Scully leans in and rests her head on her mother’s blouse, leaving coins of saline like an offering to God to let her partner live. 

She sheds tears for Melissa. For Emily.

They sway together until the rhythm has soaked through her soul like a metronome. Until she is quiet, calm. 

Her mother presses a kiss to her head. “Any news?” 

Scully clears her throat and dries her eyes, leaning back to stare at Christ on the cross. 

“I just got an update that the surgery was a success,” Scully answers. “I called his mother and AD’s Skinner and Kersh already. He’s still going to be intubated until he wakes, but the swelling has dissipated and he’s on the way to recovery. It’s touch and go, but It worked,” she whispers, relief evident in her exhale. 

“I had faith it would.” They sit side by side in silence as the flames of loved ones flicker in the dim room until her mother adds, “They kicked you out of his ICU room, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Scully chuffs, squeezing their braided fingers. “Won’t be the last time, I’m sure.”

“It never is.”

Scully turns at this, catching the gaze of the woman who has witnessed her only daughter now go through so much. “I know.”

And she does. 

Every time Scully opens the door of her fortress a little more, inviting Mulder further into the sanctuary of her heart, something terrible happens that leaves her wounded with an abundance of internal scars. But there is never a _last time,_ this she knows with certainty. 

“Have you thought about it?” Her piercing hazel eyes soften in understanding. “Have you thought about what you want, Dana Katherine?”

Thoughts of how she can’t take many more worry-filled moments like this have entered her mind. How she isn’t sure she’s ready to shine a light on what’s been slowly growing and winding itself through her ribcage, making a home there deep within her heart. Isn’t sure she wants to in recent months and with the thought of how many times they’ve come this close to death. But Scully has been thinking a lot about that: about what she wants. About how one singular moment can change the future forever. 

“Mom,” she scoffs. It’s all she thinks about. 

“For heaven’s sake, Dana, sometimes you act like I’ve been living under a rock for the past six years.” It’s said with a lilt, but Scully knows she is saddened by her unwillingness to open up. 

“Is this really the time to discuss this?”

“What better place for a little honest soul searching? If you’re not going to be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself. You love Fox. You love him for the kind of man he is, how he makes you feel, your trust for one another… and a great number of other reasons I’ll never be privy to. But you’re _in love_ with him, too.”

“Oh, God.” Her mother has always been able to do this—read her like a book. It’s unnerving. “I shouldn’t be.”

“But you are.”

The brazen statement is true. 

She could’ve left him a hundred times. But Scully has never felt such yearning, such an intense desire for another human being. He thrills and excites her. Makes her feel invigorated and alive. Terrifies her. Loving Fox Mulder is a scary thing. But loving him so fiercely that she’d willingly follow him to hell and back without hesitation is _terrifying_. 

"Getting shot," she says at last, quiet and wistful. Confessing this to her mother before God isn’t really a secret any longer. "It has a way of grabbing your attention, making you take a good look at yourself. I had a lot of time to think when I was in New York. A lot of time to reflect on where my life was headed. Where it wasn’t. Both before the incident and after. And even now, I’ve realized everything that kept me on this path since the beginning is still true, still bearing me north like an unwavering compass. Only it doesn’t just belong to me, as frustrating as it is. It’s Mulder’s, too. My future has also become his.”

“There is no one without the other,” she states with a motherly stroke of Scully’s hair. “That’s a soulmate.”

Scully shifts along the wood and shakes her head, attempting one last ditch effort of denial. 

“That’s… just us. Even if that were true, I could never tell him how I feel about… about any of it. If I did that…” Her eyes flutter shut. She sees her past with Mulder and can’t help but question their future when another woman’s shadow lingers in the present. “I can’t.”

“You can, Dana.” Cupping Scully’s face between her soft hands, she makes a mother’s plea. “Even if you think he can’t hear you, tell him. Trust me when I say that not expressing what you feel for those you love when you have the chance leaves a gaping hole of regret. Fox deserves to know. And you, my daughter, deserve to finally say it.” 

“I can’t do it, Mom, no matter how badly I might want to. And how foolish I feel for wanting it.”

These conversations are exactly the ones Scully wants to avoid. She likes things orderly with answers that are simple. But this thing that gestates between her and Mulder is messy and complicated, intrinsically so.

“Why?”

Her control slips as she pulls her face from her mother’s hands and tucks them into her lap. 

“Because it’ll change everything! Don’t you see? Involving… _that_ into our relationship will only complicate things. And what if...” She swallows and stares at the image of Mary lovingly stroking Joseph's cheek as Jesus nurses at her breast. She will never have that in life. Never have it with anyone. But Mulder can without her. “...what if it ruins everything?”

“Oh, honey, but what if it’s everything you’ve ever needed?”

A sudden memory of herself lying in a hospital bed, staring steadfast into her partner’s golden gaze, relief masking his guilt she’d known laid just beneath that mercurial, boyish veneer. As he held out her cross in proof of his belief in her return, she knew then she was exactly where she needed to be.

_I had the strength of your beliefs._

She had felt him in her heart when her life dangled by a rope. Heard his desperation. Maybe now she can embrace her need for Mulder’s belief in herself. That his trust still lay with _her_. That it’s as endless as the circle she’d etched in her flesh for him.

It’s personal. 

“You’re right,” Scully admits. “I gotta go. Mulder needs me.” And she needs him, too. As much as that emotional dependency scares her, it fuels her purpose in a life spent searching for the truth in the dark. 

Scully stands, giving their joined hands one last squeeze, and moves down the aisle, tucking her heart away.

“Dana…”

“I know, Mom, I won’t forget.” 

***

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

ROOM 1013

48HRS LATER

Scully sits at the end of Mulder’s bed where she has been massaging his feet for blood flow and obsessively checking for flexor response. Professionally, she has spent the hours adjusting his IV and bandages around his head, testing reflexive eye movements, pushing for updated MRI’s, and raking through his updated charts with a fine toothed comb. 

Dana Scully, MD; a nurse’s worst nightmare.

She has spent an exorbitant amount of time running her fingers through his hair. Calms herself by rubbing lotion into his hands and arms. Takes care in adjusting his blankets and the hospital gown she knows he hates wearing. She fluffs the nest of flowers the Gunmen and FBI have sent, even resists plucking at the largest bouquet with a familiar loopy scrawl on the card that smells of expensive perfume.

Each minute blends into an hour and an hour slips into another day. It’s like being stuck in the middle of a merry-go-round as time whirls by and only she and Mulder are standing still. 

Scully has cried several times in private since her chapel confession. Muffled sobs of concern and frustration loom over her like storm clouds through the window, and she resents tiring herself out in case Mulder wakes while she dozes. Holding his hand for hours, ignoring her mother’s and Skinner’s plea to go home have not gone over well with the nurses who continue to shoo her away for breaks. She has barely slept in the past two days and only eats when the doctor finally forces her to leave. 

She insists she is fine. 

Flipping through the pages of his chart for the thirtieth time, looking for anything she might’ve missed the first twenty-nine, Scully startles when the doctor walks in, catching her in the act once again. 

“I thought I’d see you here. Though I was not expecting to see you dissecting my chart during midnight rounds.”

Scully rubs her eyes. They burn with lack of sleep and Fox Mulder tunnel vision. 

“I’m just checking.” She does not apologize and Dr. Anderson does not expect one. There’s a mutual understanding between them: the doctor does her job, then Scully makes sure it’s Mulder-approved. 

“I know.” As she checks Mulder’s new responses to stimulus and takes notes, she offers reassurance, obviously noting her haggard appearance. “He’s doing great. I see improvement with his responses which indicate he’s in the lighter stages of unconsciousness now. That’s always a positive in recovering coma patients.”

The fact that Scully has been in one herself isn’t something she feels like sharing, but she has to ask, “The confusion when he wakes, what could we expect?” 

“Depends. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but studies show that patients tend to have little to no complications upon waking when their loved ones talk to them. Fox can likely hear you now. Knowing who is talking can make all the difference.” Taking his chart and signing in a doctor's scrawl, she smirks as she eyes Scully carefully. “Maybe give him something to wake up for.”

Scully blinks. “Of course I speak to him. I’ve been reading UFO Weekly and rooting for the Knicks.” They both smile, but Scully understands what she really means. It’s the same thing her mother has told her not to forget. The thing she has so desperately hidden in the deep recesses of her chest. “Okay, understood.”

“His prognosis is great. The pressure in his brain is gone and chances are even better if he shows signs of waking in the morning.”

“And what do we do if he doesn’t?” she pushes.

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Goodnight, Dr. Scully.”

Scully knows what beckons on the other side of the bridge and cannot risk Mulder crossing it. 

She wanders over to the flowers sent from others and stares, wondering what exactly “outsiders” see when they look at them. Scully knows that apart they are targets with a red X on their chests. They fail and fuck up and knock on death's door frequently. She has bullet-shaped proof of that puckering the skin of her abdomen. Together though, they are a force to be reckoned with. 

Even when she hates it, it’s true. 

Especially when she hates it.

For the past eight months, she’s felt mostly confused, agitated. Hurt. Crushed, even regarding a certain leggy brunette with a generous chunk of Fox Mulder’s trust in her pocket and a challenging smirk plastered to her red lips. During the last two days, she’s vacillated among relieved, anxious, and terrified. But now, seeing him lying there, she feels only complete devotion.

She moves back over to his bedside and sinks into the well-worn chair to look at him.

A frequent spark she’s tried to smother so often recently reignites as she stares at him. Appreciating each mark, each curve and slope of his chiseled features. It flickers warm in her belly and swirls hotly up to her heart. As if branding it with this moment as it beats solely for the man who ultimately holds it within his hands. 

Tears prick her eyes and anger rises at the recognition of what this means for her. For them. She is no longer teetering on the line between denial and acceptance.

And acceptance hurts. 

“Dammit, Mulder, loving you is painful. No matter how hard I tried not to, I fell in love with you. Somewhere along the way I fell. And that scares the hell out of me. But I know—I’ve seen the reality of it scare you, too.” She huffs and breathes deeply, shaking off residual shock in tearing open Pandora’s box of previously unmentionable words. “But god, I love you so deeply the pain of it consumes me sometimes.” 

She pinches her cross necklace between her fingers, tracing the lines of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with religious ease. She knows Mulder doesn’t believe and only in recent years has she welcomed it back into her life, but she needs belief for the both of them. 

Never taking her eyes off of his chest rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm, Scully unclasps the delicate hook of jewelry and loops the golden chain within her fingers. The last time she’d held it aloft in a moment of heartache was when it no longer rested around her daughter's neck. This time, Scully tucks her symbol of hope within her palm and twines her fingers with Mulder’s. She squeezes, rubbing the unique whorls and lines of his hand, memorizing. He does not squeeze back, so she has to have faith that the strengths of her beliefs are enough. 

“I think it consumes us both.”

Exhausted, she lays her head along his bicep, inhaling his scent, but it’s muted with antiseptic and med-grade detergent. Only as her nose nuzzles its way beneath the hospital gown and along his arm does she allow sleep to consume her. 

——

Vivid moments of his past keep flashing before his eyes, whirling by like tangible slides on a projector. 

Mulder relishes them all, even as each one brings both joy and heartache. If he wants, he can reach out and touch the ones that leave an emotional imprint on his heart: Samantha laughing as she races him through the flower fields on the vineyard. Her sticking out her tongue at him across the dinner table. Being scared as she sneaks into his room while their parents argue below. Her little arms wrapping tightly around him after he finds her lost kitten stuck in a tree. Him staring at her framed photo year after year, realizing he may have found his sister’s kitten, but may never find her. 

Next, Diana slips by in a blur. Her smiling at him across the room. Him trusting her with his heart because no one else has ever wanted it. Her leaving to Berlin as he dusts himself off and throws himself in the files. 

Then, Scully appears within the snapshots of his life. A beacon in the night. The skeptical looks she tosses him float by in technicolor. He can hear the first time she says his name roll through his mind; feels his hand palming her back a thousand times; sees her upturned face looking at him with a challenge in her eye; watches her saving his ass over and over again with such care and concern; knows that the way she makes him feel every single day is an X-File in itself: wanted. 

Loved.

_Loving you is painful._

At the abrupt sound of Scully’s voice melding into images of the past, Mulder’s dreams begin to pixelate and drift away piece by piece. 

_I fell in love with you._

The only thing that remains unchanged, steadfast, is Scully and the recent moment of her lying in her New York hospital bed staring up at him with a gaze akin to the one in his hallway. The one before the bee. His hand that’s tenderly grasping her fingers as his thumb plays with hers suddenly feels slippery, like oil on his skin. Panicking at the thought of losing her, he clutches at her fiercely and she embraces him. His hands wrap around her shoulders, his cheek against hers, her breath hot on his neck with fingers sliding through his hair as she whispers in his ear…

_I love you so deeply the pain of it consumes me sometimes._

Mulder shakes his head in confusion. 

There is no sense of time here. No sense of how long he’s been immersed in his mind, but he’s damn certain Scully has never uttered those words to him before. And he would know, these are his memories. The ones he clings to alone in his bed at night. The ones he tries desperately not to obsess about, and the ones he thinks about when it’s the last thing he knows he should be. 

_I think it consumes us both._

Scully’s right. They are both consumed. 

Her words are real and overwhelming and amazing… and they beckon him. She beckons him. 

All of a sudden he feels a pull in the center of his chest. The Scully from his memory vanishes beneath him and he falls head first into a sea of shadows. 

_Mulder, it’s me. It’s okay, I’m here._

He hears her. He can feel her familiar touch along his skin, his face, but time is running out. He wants to stay where he is—in between now and then, yet he cannot breathe. There’s something painful sliding through his throat now and hands are forcing his body down. He has no oxygen left but he’s more terrified of leaving Scully somewhere in the darkness than never taking another breath, so he fights.

_The tube—don’t fight it, Mulder, I’m right here with you._

Scully’s voice is closer, more insistent, and he trusts what she tells him. He trusts her with his life. So he kicks his way through the darkness, following her reassurance as he swims toward the light.

Mulder breaks through the abyss with a gasp. 

His heart is pounding, as if the only source of survival has dragged him up from depths of the ocean. A soft, coaxing voice tugs the lone thread wound tightly around his heart a little more and his lashes flutter. Light as bright as the sun shines in his eyes as he struggles to find her: Scully, his life preserver. 

“Mulder, can you hear me?” 

He sees her big blue eyes staring down at him as nurses whip around the room. Her hair is a mess, face is void of makeup, and a dark ring hugs her eyelids. 

She’s been worried.

“Scu…” he coughs. Fully alert now, he notices his nails carving half moons in her skin above where her cross necklace is wound around her fingers. 

“Hey, there you are.” Scully smiles and touches his fingers that grip her. He quickly releases her and his arm flops to the mattress like jello. 

“Fox?” A woman—a doctor, he can tell, leans into his eyeline. “I’m Dr. Anderson and you’re at Georgetown University Hospital. You have been in a coma for almost three days. Can you remember what happened?” 

He squints as she holds a finger up for him to track. 

A phone call. A blue truck. Twisted metal. Incredible pain as he called out for Scully… 

And then nothing but his memories.

_Fuck._

_***_

A half an hour after Dr. Anderson informed him of his injuries and the details of his surgery, the nurses have finally left him to rest, and he even sweet-talked them into removing his catheter before they did. He feels like his head is in a vise but the fact that Scully is sitting by his side makes any insufferable situation bearable.

“So…” Scully’s hip brushes his as she hovers over his face, relief evident in her coy smirk. “Your mother will be here soon and the Gunmen have been chomping at the bit to hear your thoughts on their latest article.” 

“I’m sure,” he strains and glances at the flowers along the wall. He jokingly says, “Looks like someone loves me.”

Her smile falters as she stares at the largest bouquet hidden behind the others. “Yes, someone does.”

“You love me.” His voice is raspy, his mouth is dry, and it hurts like hell to breathe, but nothing in the world can stop him from staying this. “You said so.”

She bites her swollen lip and her hand strokes his face. She tilts her head, considering his words, and huffs out a watery laugh. “Mulder, you’re drugged.”

Even through the haze of painkillers, he can see she is still his perfect opposite. Still skeptical of his bedside revelations fueled by the paranormal. 

“But you’re not. I heard you, Scully.” He winces, seeing her wide-eyed expression. “While I was… sleeping I saw the past. I saw Samatha and then you were there. You… you were in my head.”

“Shh, okay. I remember the good stuff makes you loopy.” She teases but it’s he who rolls his eyes. “Have some water.” Her tender touch disappears as she grabs a straw for him to sip. It’s like rubbing Vaseline against sandpaper as the liquid coats his throat. “That’s it, go slow. The breathing tube will make swallowing uncomfortable for a day or two and I can always pilfer in some iced tea for you.” 

She’s rambling as her fingers glide through his hair, avoiding his penetrative gaze. And even with the throbbing knot obscuring the vision in his left eye, he sees wet mist clouding her own. 

Does she not believe he feels the same way she does?

“Hey.” Mulder reaches up and weakly palms her cheek. Her warm hand covers his and she holds it tight as her lashes flutter shut. A hot tear trickles down his knuckle. He can feel her sorrow embed in his skin like a tack. “I’m fine, okay?”

“That’s my line,” she chokes.

“I’m here, Scully, alive. Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Not funny.”

“You were worried about me, partner.” He sighs, exhausted. Exhausted from the coma. Exhausted from watching his life in rewind. Exhausted from fighting the strain between them for months. “I know the feeling.”

She huffs. “These days I worry less about myself and more about you.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes as he tucks a strand of red behind her ear. 

She doesn’t blink, just inhales sharply and holds his gaze. “For what?” 

If he wasn’t already laying down, the weight of her loaded words would surely knock him on his ass. “For more than you'll ever know.”

One brow arches as she exhales, responding with a twitch of her lips and a warm palm to his sternum. “Mulder…”

“You have to know I meant what I said to you after Bermuda,” he says adamantly and she gasps. “I wasn’t loopy then, and I’m not now.”

The look on her face is making his eyes water and this, he thinks, is what it looks like when Dana Scully finally admits she is in love with Spooky Mulder, yet is conflicted on how to act on it.

He knows the feeling. Maybe for now, knowing is enough. 

Scully squeezes his hand and drags her teeth over her Cupid’s bow. Their eyes are dancing like long-time lovers do and he can’t look away. He senses their personal relationship has changed for the better. Can almost feel their fractured foundation shift back into its seamless fit. And if the highlights of his entire life have shown him anything, it’s that he will wait a thousand lifetimes for his one and five billion to openly love him back. 

Even if that moment never comes. 

Through the beeping machines, a comfortable blanket of silence surrounds them as they watch each other—seemingly reading one another’s mind. Mulder understands the risks she’s taken to be the center of his world. Hates what she has sacrificed to be his human credential, but he loves her more and more with every breath because of it. She deserves so much more than this. But he just wishes he was brave enough to love her this way and still let her go.

As if he’d confessed this aloud, she kisses his thumb stroking her cheek and smiles. That tender smile is his undoing. 

“I... I meant what I said to you, Mulder. I mean it still,” she whispers, and he grins in return. The weight of worry on his heart is no longer sullen. 

This woman—his partner in this life and the ones before it—has imprinted herself on him, made her mark on his soul. Mulder realizes now that his past, present, and future doesn’t need compartmentalizing at all. Each one has always belonged to her. 

And every moment in between. 

**Author's Note:**

> As I finished this, I decided to actually allow a mutual confession of love to happen. Had Two Fathers and One Son(and a lot of other situations)not happened, I think the two of them would have gotten around to it sooner. I chose s6 for this to take place because having one of them in a coma isn’t angsty enough without some added Diana angst, right? 🙃
> 
> Thanks for reading😊


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